Monday, November 07, 2016

An Ode to Joy This Election. Yes, Joy

People have called it unprecedented. People have called it bruising. People have called it hellish. Like, seriously, are we all in Hell and this election is our eternal punishment?

But you know what no one has called this election? Not one single person? No one has called it a joy.

Yet, in so many ways for so many people, this vote on Tuesday will be just that. A joy.

For millions of women. For millions of people of color. For millions of immigrants. For millions of people of other faiths. For millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. For millions of sane, rational, thoughtful, open-minded, big-hearted Americans casting our ballot for Hillary Clinton will be a fucking joy.

It will be a joy for two reasons. The first, of course, is that is will be a singular, decisive rebuke against Donald Trump. He is unquestionably the most unqualified, most undeserving most unacceptable person to run for President of the United States of America in our lifetime. He is a racist. He is a sexist. He is a xenophobe. He is a homophobe. He is a liar. He is a cheat. He is bigot. He is an unhinged narcissist who brags about sexual assault, gleefully takes credit for other people’s charity and cavalierly postures as a strongman despot.

He is the worst in us. And he has made this entire election almost unbearable.

Yet here we are because a baseline 40 percent of Americans would vote for a steaming pile of garbage as long as you slap a big R on it and promise it will ban abortion, keep out foreigners, repress people of color, put women in their place, allow you to refuse gay people a slice of pizza, make guns easier to buy than a lollipop and TRUMP THAT BITCH.

Never before have I spent so many sleepless nights and groggy mornings worrying about the future of this country and the fate of our democracy. It has gotten to the point where the mere mention of the word “poll” makes me want to rock back-and-forth in the fetal position. When will this long, national panic attack finally be over? Tomorrow, it will be over tomorrow. Happy happy, joy joy.

And yet the real shame of this whole thing – other than our collective shame at ever elevating someone as loathsome as Trump to the level of the presidency – is that it has overshadowed the second joy so many of us feel about this election. And that is the joy of being able to vote for Hillary Clinton.

Now let me stop you right there. Don’t give me any of your BUT EMAILS bullshit. I do not care. I simply, completely, unabashedly do not give one flying fart about her damn emails or private server or the Wikileaks hacks. So she used a private server which she has since apologized for and stopped using. So her campaign staff strategized and tried to beat her opponent. Nothing criminal was found in either case. So give me a break and go shove your false equivalency elsewhere.

Because of all of the nonstop barrage of insanity coming from Trump, because of media’s endless empathy for even the most hateful of his supporters, because of the canard of “economic anxiety” bolstering his candidacy, what has been overlooked are the people – like me and hopefully you – who are genuinely excited to cast our votes for her. I mean, shit, our whole freaking hashtag is “I’m With Her.” Yet where are the stories about those of us with her? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Oh, I see – you’re too busy writing yet another article sympathizing with blue-collar white male anxiety. Got it. Cool, cool.

The desire to normalize the completely abnormal of a candidate who is so openly supported by Nazis, the KKK, white nationalists and Russia (not to mention the FBI) has overshadowed the true history of this election. And is that for the first time in our country’s 240-year history a woman stands at the cusp of becoming President of the United States of America. Women, who make up more than half of the population, could indeed finally break that highest, hardest of glass ceilings.

This is true history. This is, well, huge. Yet we have been so busy worrying about the what if disaster of Trump, we have hardly had time to revel in this epic accomplishment for womankind. And whenever we dare bring it up some jackass yells, “Stop voting with your vagina!” You know what? No, I won’t. Because for the 227-years of the presidency you dudes have been allowed to vote with their dicks. Guess what, fellas? Now it’s our turn. Pussy grabs back. And, oh yeah, our candidate also happens to be the most qualified, the most prepared, the most knowledgeable person on the ballot this year. We are women, and we are going to vote our damn vaginas off this election.

We’re going to vote so the chauvinist dudes at work know their era is ending. We’re going to vote so that jerks on the street demanding we smile know we smile only for ourselves. We’re going to vote so our bosses know they can no longer pass us over in favor of mediocre men. We’re going to vote so that our daughters and our sisters and our mothers and our aunts and our nieces and our grandmothers and our best friends and our girlfriends and our wives and every other women and even ourselves know there is no dream we cannot achieve if we work hard, stay focused, care deeply and never gives up. Even if that dream is to become President of the United States of America.

We’re going to vote because 96 years ago none of us could vote. And for far many of us, women of color in particular, it took even longer to gain that most basic of rights. So when we push that button, fill in that circle, pull that lever it is with the joy of knowing our time has come. The arc of the moral universe has finally bent toward us. And, as long as we keep fighting, it will keep on bending toward justice.

Imagine, if you will, if the national media cared to write about that. Every now and then a tweet about some fierce grandma born before women had the right to vote goes viral. We share posts of women and their daughters going to the polls together arm-in-arm on Facebook. But that joy, the joy of the Hillary voter, it’s been missing from our national discourse. Why? God, so many reasons. Like, I dunno, maybe because sexism and misogyny exist and remain unchecked in our society?

But you know what, who cares. We don’t need your glowing 2,000-word think pieces on us. We know our own hearts. And our hearts are beating out of our chests for Hillary Clinton. So we are spreading that joy with each other. In email chains with Hillary-supporting friends. In secret Facebook groups with Hillary-supporting citizens. In each smile and head nod I get when I wear my “Deal Me In” T-shirt from Hillary-supporting strangers.

We are out there. We are legion. We will win if only we get out there and vote.

So Tuesday, I will don a crisp white shirt for the suffragettes who have come before me and Wonder Woman socks for all of those superheroes still out there fighting every single day. I will go to the polls and I will cast my vote for Hillary Clinton. And I will think of all women – past, present, and future. I will cry. I will most definitely cry. But it won’t be because this infernal, seemingly never-ending hellscape of an election has beaten me down. I will cry for the history of this decision. I will cry for the magnitude of this moment. I will cry at the joy of being able to vote for Hillary Clinton.

No one can take that joy from us. Because, guess what, we’re about to elect our first female president. This is our fucking election, enjoy it.

Note to DS: although I had my reservations about HRC in the beginning, I gladly, willingly vote for her.(I even got my 95 year old Grandma and 97 year old Grandpa to vote for her too!)Also, thank you for this beautifully written piece. You are amazing!

Thank you for voting. And, thank you for writing this article. Many of us, for different reasons... I'm Canadian, for example... cannot vote in this election. But, we can share the feelings of joy and accomplishment, on our collective behalf, as women around the world.

Thank you DS for writing this beautiful piece that so well expresses how I feel. I'm a California lady and I'll be voting for Hillary for myself and all of these lovely women from other countries who want her for us too.